


Snow on New Year’s

by pepsicola



Category: South Park
Genre: F/M, Go Fish, Holiday break, Idk if I'm doing this right, M/M, Snowmen, cabin in the mountains, for twenty eighteen going onto twenty nineteen, i can't use numbers, inspired by when i went to yosemite w my family for new year's, new year's, so wack, sophomore year of high school, this is my first gift fic thing, twenty twenty is implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22044850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepsicola/pseuds/pepsicola
Summary: Eric's family rents a cabin in the Rockies for New Year's, and Butters is allowed to come along.
Relationships: Clyde Donovan/Bebe Stevens, Eric Cartman/Butters Stotch
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	Snow on New Year’s

**Author's Note:**

  * For [YZYdragon2222](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YZYdragon2222/gifts).



When Butters saw the mischief dancing in Eric’s brown and violet eyes, he groaned. He knew what that look meant.

“Go fish,” Eric said, smirking.

“Awww.” Butters pouted as he grabbed the last card from the draw pile. It was a four. He had two of them now, and three sixes. Eric had three cards left over. Butters could see the end before it even happened. Butters only had four four-of-a-kinds. Eric had so much more than he did! And now Eric would ask him for a four or a six. “I wanted to play Speed,” Butters whined.

“Tough shit,” Eric taunted.

Butters reached across to lightly shove Eric in the shoulder with his pointer finger.

Eric grinned at him. He glanced down at his hand. Butters scoffed at how he pretended to think about which card to ask for. “Do you have any fours?”

“Ughhh, why?” Butters whimpered. He pulled his two fours from his hand. “I was gonna ask you for a four!”

Eric laughed, putting down a new four-of-a-kind.

Grumbling, Butters asked, “Do you have any sixes?”

Eric gave him his last card, the missing six.

Butters put down his fifth four-of-a-kind. It didn’t matter. He’d lost anyway. “Why’d we have to play this game?”

“Because I always win,” Eric said matter-of-factly.

Butters shot him a side-eye that he didn’t mean. “Exactly.” He stuck his tongue out at him, and he meant that. He scrambled up the neat piles of cards, saying, “Who knew you were such a… a card shark?”

Eric shot him a quizzical look, leaning back on his hands. “What does that mean?”

Clyde, from the armchair next to the bed where Eric and Butters sat, laughed a little and started singing, “Back when we were card sharks, playing games, I thought you were leading me on…” He looked up from his phone at Eric and Butters. “No? Never heard that song before?” he asked. When Eric and Butters continued staring at him with blank faces, Clyde shrugged and returned to his phone.

Eric lifted his eyebrows at Butters. Butters could hear Eric’s voice in his head, and it said, _He’s mad crazy._ He reached across the cards for Butters, dragging him onto his lap. He kissed Butters from his jaw to his temple. His hands pushed up his shirt. Butters pretended it didn’t excite him. Clyde was in the loft with them, and Eric and Clyde’s parents were downstairs. This was no place for Butters to get caught up in the moment.

To Clyde, Butters said, “Are you sure you don’t wanna play? Maybe you can beat Eric.”

When Butters said Eric’s name, he bit his ear. Butters tried to make the way he put his head back on Eric’s shoulder casual. Really though, he was exposing more of his neck to Eric.

Before Eric and Butters had started to play Go Fish, they’d asked Clyde if he wanted to play too, but he’d declined the way he did now.

Clyde shook his head. “No thanks. I’m good.”

Eric smirked. Butters felt it against his neck. “He’s too busy texting Bebe.”

Clyde’s eyes snapped up at glare at Eric, but when he noticed Eric’s hand moving towards Butters’ inner thigh, he looked away. Butters was blushing furiously, but he didn’t want to tell Eric to stop.

Butters giggled nervously. He slapped Eric’s wrist so he would move his hand away before things could escalate. As much as he wanted that to happen, he didn’t want Clyde to be there to witness the slow touches Eric had mastered.

When Eric’s eyes were on his, Butters asked, “Can we play Speed now?”

Before Eric could speak, there was a shout from downstairs, “Boys, come down! Five minutes till midnight!”

Clyde, Eric, and Butters all looked at each other. Then Clyde stood from the armchair, and Eric and Butters crawled off the bed. They raced down the narrow wooden stairwell of the cabin. Clyde jumped off the last three steps.

“Beat you,” he said.

“Shut up,” Eric retorted. “You’re literally a football player.”

Looking at Butters, Clyde put his hand to the side of his mouth and jabbed his thumb at Eric with his other hand. Between his teeth, he muttered, “Sore loser.”

Butters laughed out loud.

Eric pushed his brother, and Clyde pushed back.

Before things could get too aggressive, Liane came hurrying over holding three cone hats. “Hurry. It’s almost midnight.” She put a hat on each boy.

“You said that already,” Eric said, taking the hat from his mom so he could put it on himself.

In the kitchen, Roger closed the fridge, balancing three plastic champagne glasses in his hands. He put them on the counter.

“Cool! Alcohol!” Clyde exclaimed. He went over and eagerly picked up a glass. He sipped from his cup, and his face fell. The disappointment in his voice was comical. “Nope. Just cider.”

Roger deadpanned, “Did you really think we would give you alcohol?”

“Yes! We’re fifteen!” He gestured with his cup to Butters. “He’s sixteen!”

Liane laughed like that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. “That’s nowhere _near_ twenty-one,” she said, wiping away a tear rolling down her cheek.

Clyde frowned into his cup. Butters could see the embarrassment on his face. Clyde said stupid things sometimes, but that’s what made him who he was.

Eric spoke up, “Kids in our grade drink when they’re at parties. Doesn’t matter if they’re freshmen or seniors. I see it on people’s stories all the time.”

Clyde looked up, glaring pointedly at his parents. “Yeah!” he agreed.

Roger gave Clyde and Eric a look. “This isn’t a high school party. This is New Year’s with your family,” he corrected.

Eric shrugged at Clyde as if to silently say, _Well, I tried._

“Go ahead and drink _responsibly,”_ Liane emphasized, “at high school parties, but for now, come to the TV. The countdown is starting.”

Clyde put his cider down on the granite counter. On the short walk over to the cozy, carpet-covered living room, he asked Butters, “Why _are_ you sixteen so early in the school year?”

Butters said, “Well, since I moved from Kauai a short time before preschool started, it was too late for my parents to enroll me go into the class before ours, so I had to be put with you fellas. That’s why I’m the oldest in the grade. It’s the cut off.”

On the TV in the living room, the last minute of the year was quickly fading. Everyone in the cabin was counting down with the numbers on the screen. There was a man and a woman on the TV standing atop a building overlooking a huge crowd. When there were ten seconds left on the clock flashing across the TV, Butters began bouncing on his toes. He raised the noisemaker to his mouth so he could be ready to blow into it once midnight struck.

Along with everyone else, Butters shouted, “Three… two… one—!” but he was cut short.

Butters didn’t even see one hit, because the first thing Eric did was grab him and slam their lips together. Butters melted into it instantly. In the background, the cabin erupted in loud noise created by only three people and a TV screen. Noisemakers and cheers rang through the air. The TV was cheering too.

When Eric pulled back, Butters was smiling. “Y’know you don’t have to kiss me the second it turns midnight, right?” he teased lightly.

Eric rolled his eyes, but Butters saw the nervousness in his grin. “Pssh, I know that. I just want the first thing I see in the new decade to be you,” he said.

“That’s cute as hell,” Clyde said. He was looking over at the two.

Eric whirled to glare daggers at him. “Shut up, Clyde,” he snapped. Red was rising to his face.

Clyde just smirked.

Butters gently turned Eric’s face back to his so he could kiss him again, softer this time. Butters murmured, “You must panic a lot about New Year’s kisses. You’ve done that since eighth grade.”

Eric was embarrassed by this. He brushed it off by musing, “We’ve spent three New Year’s together.”

“And we’ve been together for two years,” Butters added joyfully.

Eric smiled fondly at Butters, something only he got to see.

Eric broke away from Butters to embrace his family. Butters stood in the middle of the living room, watching Eric go from Liane to Roger to Clyde, wishing each other Happy New Year with warm hugs. With Butters’ parents, even during New Year’s, they were hesitant to embrace him—like he was a stranger and not their son. So he didn’t really expect it when Liane went over to him to hug him too after she finished hugging Eric.

Liane squeezed him, whispering, “You’re as part of this family as anyone.”

Butters didn’t think he’d get choked up, but when Liane pulled away so Clyde could replace her, Butters didn’t say a word in case he might cry. His throat was scratchy like he might if he opened his mouth. It was comforting to know he had a place to go during the times he wasn’t wanted in his own home.

When the embraces were over, Roger herded everyone to the counter to cheer to the new year. The three teenage boys sat on the bar stools. Liane and Roger were standing opposite them.

“To the new year,” Roger said, raising his glass of champagne.

Everyone echoed him. Glasses clinked. Smiles were traded. After Eric bumped his plastic cup against Butters’, he leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. Butters found that he couldn’t stop smiling. He’d never felt so welcomed into the new year.

Liane, Roger, Eric, and Clyde were sipping from their drinks. Butters happened to glance through the grand windows. Out in the cold with the trees, snow was falling from the black sky.

Butters grabbed Eric’s wrist in excitement. Eric was moving to drink again, and the apple cider sloshed over the lip of the cup and onto his shirt. Butters didn’t notice. “It’s snowing!” he exclaimed.

Eric shook droplets of cider from his shirt. He sipped his cider and furrowed his eyebrows at Butters around a puzzled smile. “Okay?”

Butters gave him a look.

Eric put his empty cup down. He sighed, moving his hat further back on his head. “Wanna go out?” he offered.

Butters said sarcastically, “No. I just wanted to point out the fact that it’s snowin’ for no good reason.”

Eric grinned. “I love your sarcasm.”

They grabbed their coats by the door and laced up their winter boots. They stepped out the door, and that was as far as they got before stopping. Butters shivered from the cold. Eric pulled him close.

They grabbed their coats by the door and laced up their winter boots. They stepped out the door, and that was as far as they got before hesitating. Butters shivered from the cold. Eric pulled him in close.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Away from the overhang of the cabin, they walked to where the snow was falling freely without being blocked out by the trees. Butters stopped and tilted his head up, sticking his tongue out in attempt to catch one of the many falling snowflakes. The snow that hit his face melted, leaving cold, wet paths down his cheeks.

Eric took Butters’ hand and laced their fingers. It didn’t provide warmth, but it provided comfort. Eric copied Butters, trying to get a snowflake to land on his tongue.

That’s when Clyde came out of the cabin, zipping up his coat. “It’s freezing out here!” he said. His teeth started chattering, his whole body shaking.

“It’s snowing,” Eric deadpanned.

Clyde hugged himself. He was still standing in the doorway. “So damn cold.”

Eric rolled his eyes.

“Did Dad bring the fireworks?” Clyde asked. He was finally making his way out to the snow, albeit slowly.

“I think so,” Eric answered. “But fireworks are a Fourth of July thing.”

Butters led Eric by the hand further out to the scattered trees standing at the front of the cabin. The leaves were being coated with falling snow. Moonbeams bounced off the snow, making it glisten.

“Fireworks are fireworks,” Clyde muttered, following after them.

The cabin Roger and Liane had rented for the week was a peculiar one. In front of the cabin were wooden carvings of woodland creatures hidden around the trees. Further down, past the smaller, one-room cabin were empty horse stables. Eric had wanted to explore them when they first arrived two days ago, but the ground was muddy and uneven from melted snow that fell days before.

Past the wooden carvings, the snow was deeper. Butters brought Eric down with him, kneeling in the snow. Butters didn’t have gloves, but that didn’t matter to him as he scooped up a handful of snow and pressed it into a ball. Eric made a smaller one, and Clyde crouching in front of them made the smallest one.

As Butters stacked the snowballs on top of each other, Clyde said, “I’ll find some pebbles and sticks for the arms and face.” He stood and ventured off into the night.

Eric reached out and patted the bare snowman on the head to make sure the snowballs were steady on the body. He said, “I still don’t have twenty-twenty vision.”

Butters giggled, glancing over at him. Eric wasn’t wearing his glasses like he usually did when he was home or someplace like it. “Do you have your contacts on?”

“Yeah,” Eric said. He blinked hard. “This wind is making my eyes dry.”

“Did you bring eye drops?” Butters asked.

“They’re inside.” Eric rubbed his eyes. “Jesus, I hope they don’t fall out. I only brought enough for the week.”

Butters laughed again.

The whipping wind was making his whole face cold, especially his nose. He bet Eric’s nose was cold too, so he kissed him there. Eric looked over and smiled.

Clyde returned holding a bundle of sticks in one hand. In the other, he dragged a fallen branch. “Look at this cool stick I found!” he exclaimed, pulling up the branch vertically. It was the height of his shoulder.

Eric blinked slowly at Clyde. “And how old are you?”

Clyde shot Eric a dirty look. “It’s gonna make a good walking stick for when we go hiking tomorrow. You’ll see.”

Eric groaned. “Fuck. I forgot we’re going hiking tomorrow.”

“Do you have pebbles?” Butters asked Clyde.

Clyde dropped an assortment of tiny rocks into Butters’ palm. While Butters made the snowman a face, Clyde put in the twig-arms.

The tiny, smiling snowman was completed. Clyde took his phone from his pocket to snap a picture.

“His name is Bobby,” Clyde decided. “Bobby on the Boardwalk.”

Eric snatched Clyde’s walking stick from his hand and used it to whack him in the shin.

“OW!” Clyde screeched. “What the fuck?”

“You’re so goddamn annoying. What kind of name is Bobby on the Boardwalk?” Eric said.

Clyde put his legs apart like he was ready to take off running. With a wild smirk, he said, “Bobby on the Boardwalk, summer of ‘45.”

And then he really did take off running. Eric chased after him, swinging the stick back and forth. “Run, bitch! Run!” he shouted.

Butters doubled over laughing. He heard Clyde somewhere further in the distance scream, “It wasn’t me! Bebe said to name him Bobby! It was Bebe!”

“I knew it!” Eric screamed. “I knew you sent that picture to Bebe!”

Butters gasped for air, air that stung his lungs when he inhaled it too quickly. He looked into the darkness. Near the horse stables, Clyde was still ahead of Eric, weaving through the trees at full speed like he was in the middle of a football game.

“Find a stick, Butters!” Eric called. “Help me get him!”

Butters hurried to his feet and ran to look for a stick. He found one next to a wooden carving of mushrooms. He sprinted over to Clyde, trying to corner him.

Clyde saw him coming and shrieked like a girl. He darted the other way.

Butters ran faster than Eric, so he was closer to Clyde. Clyde glanced over his shoulder. He turned, facing Butters, slowing down. Butters thought Clyde had given up, but as he got closer, Clyde juked him right.

“Nooo!” Butters cried.

They chased Clyde all around the rented property. Eric and Butters were out of breath. Clyde was still going. He was on the football team.

But then Clyde disappeared behind a tree, only to jump out again, brandishing a large stick. “Aha!” he said. He pointed it at Butters and Eric. “Now we’re sort of even.”

Eric attacked first, going for Clyde’s knees again, but Clyde blocked it with his own stick. Butters turned on Eric and hit him with his stick. Not too hard, but enough to get Eric’s attention.

It was every man for himself. They battled their way back to where they built Bobby.

Clyde was making lightsaber sounds every time he swung his stick. In the back of the knees, he hit Eric harder than he probably meant. Eric lost balance and fell to the ground right on top of Bobby, crushing him to a pile of snow.

“You squished Bobby!” Butters said.

Eric used his stick to knock away Clyde’s stick coming closer to his chest. Clyde’s lightsaber noises stopped abruptly, and his stick tumbled away.

Panting, Eric said, “It was Clyde’s fault!” He jabbed Clyde in the chest with his stick.

Clyde looked at Butters apologetically and shrugged at him in a not-so-apologetic way.

Butters grinned. He tried to poke Eric in the stomach with his stick, but Eric parried. He got up and kicked what used to be Bobby on the Boardwalk.

“RIP, Bobby,” Eric said.

The three boys crossed themselves, then laughed.

From his pocket, Clyde’s phone pinged. It had been making sounds during the chase, but he’d ignored them up until now. He went over to a nearby tree and leaned his back on it. He pulled out his phone. The brightness of his screen lit up his face.

With Clyde disinterested in the world again, Eric turned to Butters. They stared at each other for a moment. Eric was the first to look away. He always was. His hat was askew. Butters stepped closer to him to fix it. Eric seized the opportunity to kiss Butters’ numb lips.

They held it there for a long time, pretending the kiss could block out the cold.

The kiss ended. Butters and Eric rebuilt Bobby. Once he was completed, they scooted back to admire their handiwork. Eric was still holding his stick. He used it to draw in the untouched snow at the roots of a tree to their right. He drew a heart, then B + E inside.

Butters smiled. Eric met his eyes and smiled too. He kissed him again.

Clyde huffed in frustration. A white cloud of breath left his mouth. Eric and Butters broke away to look at him. He was hugging himself again, shivering. The temporary warmth of running around had worn off.

He said, “I’m going back inside. It’s too cold out here, and I’m starting to feel like a third wheel.” He trudged through the snow back to the cabin.

“Yeah right. You just wanna go back inside where there’s wi-fi so you can text Bebe. Probably something like, ‘Hey, Bebe, happy New Year’s. I’m in love with you, by the way,’ ” Eric taunted.

Clyde didn’t turn, but he shot Eric a middle finger over his shoulder.

Eric was still snickering to himself even when Clyde was back inside the warm cabin.

Eric laid back the snow. Butters did too.

They laid there in silence, staring up at the stars. Butters sometimes forgot that there were so many.

“Does it feel weird to be spending New Year’s without your parents?” Eric asked him.

“No,” Butters said. He turned his head to gaze at Eric’s profile. “In fact, this is the happiest New Year’s I’ve ever had.”

Eric was still staring up at the sky, but the corners of his mouth lifted in that dream-like smile he reserved for Butters.

Butters found Eric’s hand laying in the snow. He entwined their fingers. The cold of the snow was starting to seep through Butters’ coat and his pants. He was completely frozen to the bone. His teeth were chattering, he was shivering, and he couldn’t feel his limbs. But that was okay because he knew he would be warm and content once he went to bed curled up with Eric beside him. For now, in the new year, he was happy laying in the fresh power snow while staring up at the stars blocked by tree silhouettes, the dark lit up by the yellow glimmer coming from the cabin windows.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never done one of these gift fic things so I don't really know what I'm doing. I don't even know if this is formatted correctly. I saw that "gift this work to" thing, so I used that, but I'm not sure if that's what I'm supposed to do. But I do know that YZYdragon2222 is one of the chillest, nicest people I've interacted with online. If you're reading this, for real, Get Off At The Right Stop is one of the best Cartters fics I've ever read. The way you write the characters is so on point. And the story too! I'm so invested. Every time I see it update I feel like I gotta drop everything to read it. I'm just lucky, I guess, to have someone like you who ships Cartters too, because the ship isn't too popular, but it really is nice finding someone else who ships it. So like thank you for being such a vibe. I hope your 2020 is as chill as you.


End file.
